A quilty update

It’s been a few months since I posted my quilt plans for this year, and so I thought I’d stop and reflect for a moment to see how things were going. In that post I set out six projects I wanted to work on this year, and then added in a final stretch project.

I’ve realised that the ‘stretch project’ to make a quilt a month is dominating my sewing, and so while I’m ‘on target’ (mostly) with that, I haven’t got as close to where I’d like to be with the other projects. So this post is to also help keep myself accountable, and to make sure I change that.

It’s not all bad though, I have made some gorgeous quilts and my confidence and skill levels are increasing. So much so that there’s a further surprise and addition to my sewing repertoire which I’m expecting to post later this week!

So how am I doing?

1 The teal flying geese

To say this one is still percolating would be a lie, it’s on the back burner. It’s still on my To Do list but not close to the top yet.

2 The mystery block a month

I’m doing much better at this one, and even though I’m working to a more relaxed timetable being a month behind the pattern releases it’s going well. I knew being away last month would scupper my plans a little, but I’m ok with that.

• January: Log cabin block

• February: Vintage star block

• March: Heart block

• April: Friendship star block

I’ve yet to start the May block, and the June block has already been released but I think with a gentler timescale for these few months I should be ok. Hopefully that’s true, and not famous last words!

3 The jeans and pyjamas

I thought that this would be the one I’d start the soonest. I’ve even got as far as sorting out some jeans to use, and the pyjama fabrics from my stash. I’ve recently added another pair of pyjama bottoms to that pile as I realised that the waistband was wearing out through use!

Other than that though I’ve yet to start this one, but I still think this one will happen this year.

4 The Essex linen kisses

I have made progress here - yay! Earlier in the year I’d cut the colourful, patterned scraps into 3 inch squares and even sourced and bought a darker grey Essex linen fabric for the background. Of course that’s not just plain, it’s got a gold tinge to it so the quilt will be rather special I think.

Last week, when I realised I wasn’t making progress on ‘my’ quilts just the stretch project this was the one I turned to, so I was right when I predicted that I thought this would be the one to start first.

I started to play with the layout one evening, aiming to have the colours wash from neutrals through to the much more brightly coloured fabrics. And it wasn’t as easy as I thought, but I ended up with a layout I liked.

I thought I’d better start sewing before I forgot my carefully laid plans, and pinning strategy. And the next day, before long I was able to lay out the blocks something close to my original plan.

I’m really pleased with this - and pleased it’s worked out just as I imagined in my head!

Clearly it’s not the largest quilt in the world, but with some sashing and borders it will, I hope, be large enough to be our go to picnic blanket, and one that’s way more stylish than our current rug.

Watch this space on this one!

5 My floral fancy

This one remains on the craft mat in the corner of my craft room. It’s still beautiful and mostly the pieces are still in the place they should be, but not much progress here.

I’m still collecting grey materials to extend the quilt, and have bought myself a sizzix machine and templates so I can cut out more flowers and leaves for the extended quilt.

I’d like to think I would have picked this one up before now if I hadn’t changed my sewing machine, but I know that my new machine will be make this one much easier to work on.

6 My English Paper Piecing (EPP) blue diamonds

This was always going to be my slow burning hand sewing project, and it is just that. I’ve added some more to the pile of completed blocks, and I’ll continue to do that over the next few months. Hopefully with a bit more speed than at present.

And the ‘stretch’ project

This one is the one that’s been getting all the attention and delivering all the results. Partly because it has a monthly schedule, and because I’m using it to burn through my stash (albeit slowly) and to build my skills and confidence.

All of these quilts will be donated to charity, so far there’s these:

• Flying Geese kit quilt

• Noughts and crosses

• A log cabin log cabin

• A mostly repurposed vintage star

• Four pink hearts and a hug

• The Friendly Bee.

And there is more to come, but I don’t want these to be my sole quilt outputs this year - so I need to work out that balance, alongside normal life too. It’s still going to be a busy rest of the year, and hopefully a productive one too.

Stay tuned…

The Friendly Bee

I’ve updated the final section of this post now that the quilt is fully complete. I’d hoped to finish this shortly after our holiday, but what with life, the heatwave it hasn’t happened until now. Though the heatwave has gone, it’s still warm in my sewing room - and plenty warm enough to have a quilt on my knee sewing the binding. But It’s finished, and I think it looks good.

I’ve made another quilt as part of my quilting ‘stretch’ project this time using the February block from Sherri at A Quilting Life’s mystery block a month. As I said then I don’t know if I’ll manage to make a quilt a month, but I won’t really know unless I try…

When I saw this one was another star I questioned my commitment to my challenge, and also my sewing ability. But, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, so phew.

My sixth charity quilt

As I said above, I wasn’t really looking forward to tackling another star block - the February vintage star block had many small pieces, which made me question why I cut up pieces of fabric to sew them back together again! Which is a fair point, when you look at it like that, but in for a penny, in for a pound and all that.

My original intention was to pull ‘yellow’ fabrics from my stash, as I thought this might lift my mood - but as you can see they ended up more beige than I expected.

Well not entirely beige, there’s some gold and rust colours in there too. The fabrics for this quilt included some more of the old orange curtains and of the duvet cover I used as backing last month, some checked material which I used back in January for the cute little houses, two vintage pillowcases and some new-to-me fat quarters bought for a much reduced price at my sewing group’s recent stash sale, plus some ‘wood effect’ material which dare I say it, I wasn’t in love with and some much smaller scraps which I used as the background on two of the blocks.

But actually it wasn’t anywhere near as daunting as I thought it might be once I started. Now isn’t there a life lesson in there?!

The blocks surprised me and came together relatively quickly.

I find it easier to lay all the elements of the blocks out in their approximate location - this means I don’t either over, or under cut the pieces I need, and it gives me a look at how the blocks might work.

I think the colours work well together - I needed to add the pink flowered background (used on the two blocks on the right) as I didn’t have enough of the fabric used for the blocks on the left, but the colours tone.

And with a bit more sewing I had four friendship star blocks.

Introducing the bees

You’re probably wondering why I’ve named this quilt the Friendly Bee, well the border fabrics should help explain that.

As you can see both of the materials bordering the Friendship star have bees, hence the Friendly Bee name.

The ‘wood effect’ fabric actually works well in this quilt, and tones nicely with the honeycomb fabric used alongside it. The two outer borders are the vintage pillowcases, and as they’re the material I had the most of they were obvious choices for the longer borders.

With the blocks attached I added the outer border, this time using two different fabrics - and I think this works, I wasn’t keen on having two of the same pattern together, so by using the pink flowered material again here I’ve avoided that.

Finishing the quilt: Update

Last month I opted to quilt the Four pink hearts and a hug quilt with diagonal lines, and it worked well. My plan is to try that again, so that’s what I’m part-way through doing for this one too. Yes, this quilt isn’t finished but it’s pretty close - I’ll update this post when it’s actually finished.

I knew that some months it would likely be harder to fit in making a quilt around everything else that life has to offer, that’s why I’ve called it my ‘stretch’ project. I’ll let you know if a few weeks how it turned out.

Update

It’s taken me longer to finish this one than I’d hoped, but it’s finished and it looks great.

Before I went away I’d got all the sewing done, which left me the job of basting, quilting and binding. With the weather a little cooler, I managed to get that done in two days, just in time to start the next one!

I opted to quilt this one in vertical lines rather than the diagonal ones I mentioned above. I actually prefer this, which is good as not only was it easier and quicker to do, I was able to mark out two lines at a time - speed quilting, if you would!

From this I learnt it’s easy to reposition the tape, but it’s also easy for the tape to move about a bit, so I’ve experimented with the optimal number of pins to keep it in place. That worked, and using the tape as a guide also worked, and so it’s something I’ll do again.

It looks pretty good doesn’t it? And way better than I could have hoped for when I pulled those mostly beiges from my stash!

You can see my other quilts which I’ve made to donate to Project Linus - a charity whose mission is to provide love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children, who are sick, disabled, disadvantaged or distressed through the donation of new, homemade, washable quilts and blankets, including those that are part of this ‘stretch’ project in earlier posts. I’m aiming to publish an update on my progress in the last week of each month for the remainder of 2025.

Transition and Decay, the rusty interpretation

While there may not be as many photos here as in my colourful interpretation post these rusty interpretations really did make me stop and think about the craft and work that has gone into both of these pieces.

The book by Gilly Meeks held items in various stages of rusting along with stitching and shows the effect that has on the material

THE RUSTING BOOK, GILLY MEEKS

Gilly says it comines her love of the making process, stitch and found rusty objects. Recycled fabrics in the book include cotton, linen, silk and tea bag fabric and all rect in different ways to the rusting process. Gilly also says she’s very drawn to the ghostly marks which result from the process.

The larger Rust quilt by Fiona Burrows takes a different and larger approach - her piece shows the aesthetic and symbolic qualities of decay and decomposition in the style of Piet Mondrian.

RUST, FIONA BURROWS

And just look at the detailed quilting.

RUST, FIONA BURROWS

I love both of these pieces as much as I love the colourful interpretations, but to me these pieces really needed their own post to shine (or rust!).

Which of the interpretations I’ve shown is your favourite?